


Perchance to Dream

by standbygo



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 12:00:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbygo/pseuds/standbygo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock gets migraine with some spectacular side effects, and still solves a case in record time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perchance to Dream

**Author's Note:**

> To Solayan, with thanks.

Sherlock recognizes the rocky terrain of Baskerville, but cannot find his way out, to the road, to the village. He needs John, John has the map, John can locate them from the placement of the sun and the direction of the wind. John never gets lost, even without a map. But Sherlock cannot find the map, nor John, and it is getting dark.

His thin soled dress shoes offer no purchase on the slate, and he must balance himself with his hands. He keeps walking over hill after hill, cutting his hands on the sharp rocks. He is cold, and sweating from exertion, and is trying to keep himself from panic.

Finally he sees John, lying on the hard ground, eyes closed. His cane lies just beyond the reach of his limp hand. Sherlock runs to him, relieved and yet with his fear rising.

“John! John, wake up, wake up – speak to me-” but there is no response. Sherlock shakes his shoulder, cups his cheek but John doesn’t even flinch or twitch. “John, wake up, what’s wrong, please, please, we need to go, we need to get out of here…”

Sherlock taps John’s cheek with his fingertips, then harder, then harder. He shouts but his voice is ripped away by the moor winds. Frustration and panic mix dangerously in his blood and he raises his hand above his head and strikes John’s face hard, harder than he ever meant to.

John’s eyes snap open. Sherlock is momentarily relieved, then guilty, then relieved again. “John, I’m so sorry, are you all right? Can you stand, we need to-” 

Sherlock’s voice shrinks in his throat as he looks at John’s face. In the gathering dusk he can still see that the eyes in John’s face are not John’s but Moriarty’s. 

John sits up and looks at Sherlock, his mouth tight and thin. “You shouldn’t have done that, Sherlock.” He reaches up and wipes a trickle of blood from his cheekbone, looks at the smear on his hand. “Not. Good.”

Sherlock takes one last look at Moriarty’s mad brown eyes in John’s face, the lines on John’s face hard, hard, and the crack of a smile that frightens Sherlock down to his feet, his feet which instinctively start to run away. It’s full dark now, Sherlock cannot see the rocks that tear at his coat and trip him, but he can hear John’s step and the squeak of his cane behind him –

Sherlock wakes with a sharp inhalation and John wakes a second later.

John’s not so long out of the RAMC that his sleeping habits have changed; when he wakes, he wakes fully and completely. He looks down at Sherlock, sees his eyes wide and staring, hears him panting, not quite but almost hyperventilating. “Sherlock?”

Sherlock pulls John towards him, peers closely into his face, then nods and mutters, “Blue, blue, good, good, blue…”

“What? Did… did you have a nightmare?”

Sherlock’s breathing slows, mixing with humming. He nods, and presses the heels of his hands into the orbital bones above his eyes.

“Well, the consolation is that you slept enough to go into your REM cycle.” He brushes his hand up and down Sherlock’s arm. John knows nightmares, knows the need to ground yourself back into reality, into the here and now. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. Hurts.”

“You got hurt in your dream?”

“No – yes – my head hurts.”

“Eh?” Sherlock never complains of pain, complaining and experiencing pain being something that mere mortals do. John sits up, reaches to turn on the light.

“No! Off off off off off!”

John reacts quickly and turns the lamp off again. “Sorry, love.” He puts his hand gently over Sherlock’s. “Show me where.”

Sherlock’s hand, with John’s covering it, glides over Sherlock’s left eye. “Here,” he whispers. Up to the top left side of his skull. “Here.” Down to the nape of his neck. “Here.”

“All on the one side?”

Sherlock nods as small as possible. John peers and checks Sherlock’s pupils as best he can in the light from the street through the curtains.

“Sounds like migraine to me. Are you prone to them?”

“Don’t know.”

John thinks, but does not say – perhaps, but had no one to tell before. He slides out of bed.

“Where are you going?” John hears the edge of panic in Sherlock’s voice, neediness that he never admits to by day. 

“I’m just going to get you some painkillers – ibuprofen, if we’ve got any.” He strokes his fingers, gently, gently, through Sherlock’s hair. “I’ll be right back.”  

John finds the pills, and while he is filling a glass with water notices the wreaks of a large candy box on the washboard. He shakes his head and returns to the bedroom. 

“Sherlock, did you eat all those chocolates Lady Hamilton sent?”

“Not all,” Sherlock’s wounded dignity emerges through his voice. “You ate some.”

“I ate two. Half the box is gone.”

“So?”

John sighs and hands Sherlock the glass and pills, supporting his head as he sits up to drink. “Well, the world’s only consulting army doctor-cum-detective can deduce the cause of your migraine then.” He helps Sherlock lie down again, adding a second pillow under his head. 

John ponders for a moment how Sherlock would not have allowed this a year ago, before John, before they became lovers, before he learned that showing John his vulnerability would not hurt him, and that accepting help was also a signifier of love. He wonders now at the times that Sherlock would simply not come out of his room for days; at the time he had assumed it was a fit of pique, but perhaps it was actually Sherlock not wanting John and the world to see his pain.

But now was now, and Sherlock revels in being cared for, sometimes to the point of being a complete prat. _But he is_ my _prat_ , John thinks fondly as he lies down again, and at the same time, _Good God, what will he be like the first time he gets the flu?_

“Sleep, love, best thing now.”

Sherlock hums, low and quiet.

oOo

“John, John, hnnng, make it stop.”

“Sherlock?”

“I can’t, I can’t-”

“It’s all right, love, you’ll be all right-”

“Help me, please…”

“How? What do you need?”

“Give me your hand, press here, just above my eye.”

“Here?”

“A little left – yes – harder, press harder-”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Please John!”

John presses harder on Sherlock’s brow, and for a few seconds Sherlock feels keen relief from the pressure, then his skull fractures like ancient honeycomb and John’s fingers fall into the dark damp of Sherlock’s brain.

Sherlock wakes.

oOo

John wakes to the ring of Sherlock’s mobile, snatches it from the bedside table and answers it as fast as he can. “Hello?”

“John?”

“Hey, Greg.” John looks over at Sherlock, who is using his long arms to try to cover his eyes and ears at the same time.

“You okay? I can barely hear you.”

John slides out of bed and pads to the doorway. “I’m good, Sherlock’s not too well though.”

“Oh.” John can hear the hesitation and conflict in the single syllable. “Ahm…”

“Who is it, John?” Sherlock snaps, then winces.

John mouths _Lestrade_.

“Don’t whisper, damn it.”

“Lestrade.”

“Case?”

John catches Greg’s hesitation. If Sherlock hears that there is a case for him, he will get up and take it, no matter if his head was half hanging off his shoulders. 

Then he remembers that he can hide nothing from Sherlock bloody Holmes, as Sherlock holds one hand out imperiously, eyes still shut.

oOo

Sherlock keeps the window open in the cab on the way to the crime scene. The cabbie complains loudly.

“Bloody hell, close the window, mate! It’s freezing out there!”

Sherlock’s voice is low but clear. “It’s only 7.5 degrees Celsius. Not freezing temperature.”

Fortunately, John has taken enough cabs in London to know a peaceable solution – he passes a tenner forward to the cabbie, and the rest of the trip passes in silence.

oOo

John pays the cabbie and walks down the long driveway with Sherlock. He notices Sherlock is listing slightly to his left, so John switches to walk on Sherlock’s right and surreptitiously pinches the sleeve of his tweed coat to keep him steady. Sherlock smiles small at him.

“I still think you’re an idiot for coming out.”

“Noted.” 

Lestrade meets them at the crime scene’s tape line. “All right, then?”

“Right enough,” John answers. Under the street lamps, Sherlock looks grey.

“Through here.” Greg holds up the police tape to let them through and leads them to the front door of the huge house; Sherlock averts his eyes from the glare of the flood lights in the foyer. 

“Victim was 51 years old, lives alone in this house. The housemaid found her this morning. No signs of a break in, nor of robbery, nor sexual assault. Really strange wounds, Molly will have to do an analysis later, but we thought it would help for you to see the scene.”

John curses internally when he sees Anderson standing in the hallway, his sneer already in place when he sees Sherlock, which deepens when the detective stumbles in the doorway.

“Bloody hell, are you drunk?” Anderson says, incredulous and mocking and – damn it – loud.

“He’s got migraine, Anderson,” John says tersely, hoping against hope that the idiot will drop the issue.

But this is apparently too much to hope for, and Anderson splits into a wide, malicious, mocking grin. “Aw, does widdle Sherlock have the vapours? Do you need to lie down? Maybe a cool cloth for your head?”

“Shut it, Anderson,” Greg snaps, saving John from bruising his knuckles on Anderson’s face. 

Greg leads the way into the front room. John barely has time to see and register the sight of the woman’s body crumpled by the armchair before Sherlock steps in the room and immediately says, “The dentist.”

“What?”

“The dentist, it was her dentist, she had three fillings this morning and he botched the fourth, she stormed out and he came back to try to talk her out of a malpractice suit, they argued, he stabbed her with a periodontal curette to the temple, oh God-”

Sherlock turns and runs to a corner of the room, already gagging. 

“Oh hell, get out, get out,” Anderson nearly screams, “do NOT contaminate the scene by puking, you-” 

John has swiftly followed Sherlock and pulled a paper bag from his pocket, simultaneously glaring at Anderson. He quickly hands the bag to Sherlock, who manages to still look elegant while throwing up. John looks up at Greg, who looks absolutely gobsmacked, both by the sight of Sherlock’s weakness and by probably the swiftest deduction in history.

“Come prepared, did you?” Greg manages at last.

“Yep. I’m a regular Boy Scout,” John grins.

Sherlock leans against the wall, looking boneless. John looks at his lover’s sallow face and brushes his fingers along the damp forehead, pushing curls aside. “Can we go home now?”

Sherlock pauses, then nods with eyes shut.

As John helps Sherlock to rise, Greg says, “By all means, get home and get better, but do you mind telling me how you knew all that? I need something to go on.”

Sherlock looks up at Greg, leaning heavily on John. “I can smell her fillings.”

John laughs. “Extra sensory sensitivity comes with the migraine. Might be a handy skill if the downside wasn’t so dire.”

“True,” Greg says, “but unfortunately I can’t get a warrant for the dentist’s arrest by telling the Chief Superintendent that you smelt her fillings. I need proof, Sherlock.”

Sherlock licks his lips. “He left his latex gloves. Somewhere over there.” He waves a long hand dismissively at the far corner of the room. “I can smell them too.”

All the police in the room are frozen with incredulity. Finally one young officer in the corner turns and begins to search, first on the floor and then the furniture. It’s only a moment until she pulls the armchair’s cushion aside and lifts up a pale latex glove, stained with blood. 

“I think you’ll find that’s the victim’s blood, and that you’ll find traces of the dentist’s DNA inside,” John says. “C’mon Greg, let him go.” 

Greg smiles, shaking his head. “Go on, get him home, then.”

As John and Sherlock head to the door, John smiles wickedly at Anderson. “Take care of this for me, will you?” he says, and pushes the paper bag into Anderson’s hands. Anderson takes it without thinking, and John regrets that he misses the look on the man’s face when he remembers what’s in the bag.

 oOo

Fresh, cold air swirls through the cab and Sherlock gulps it in greedily. He feels the pressure shift in his head, across his hairline and dissipating slightly. He sits up a bit straighter.   
   
“Feeling better?” John asks.

“A bit, yes.”

“Good.” John smiles at him, bright and without guile. Sherlock remembers the first time John smiled at him like that and thinks that he started to fall in love at that moment. 

“Hey Sherlock, look what the cabbie just gave me.” Sherlock peers at John’s hands in the darkening cab and sees the glint of glass and tin. Salt shakers, two, one in each hand.

“Which one, do you think, Sherlock?” John rattles the pills in the salt shakers. “I was always pants at deducing.  I’d better take both, just to be sure.”

Sherlock tries to shout at John, order him to drop the pills, but his lips have been sewn shut with heavy, thick string. He lifts his hands to knock them out of John’s grip but sees that his hands have been cut off, leaving him with spongey stumps reaching uselessly towards – 

Sherlock wakes.

“All right, love? We’re nearly home,” John murmurs.

oOo

“Try drinking this,” John says.

“What is it?”

“Don’t be so suspicious. My gran got migraines, she used to have a bit of fizzy drink, helped the migraine and the nausea.”

John thinks that Sherlock must be feeling better if he has the energy to look scornful. “Fizzy drink? I’m not a _child_ , John.”

“Just try. What harm?”

Sherlock pouts magnificently and briefly, then takes a sip. And another.  And another. And looks up at his lover and glares. “Oh shut up.”

“Didn’t say a word. I will later, but not now.” 

Sherlock takes one more sip and pushes the glass back to John. “No more.”

“All right. Lie down now and try to sleep a bit.”

“I’m fine. It’s only pain.”

“Those drugs Mike prescribed are going to make you very dopey. Just lie down for a bit, it’s the best thing. You’ll feel miles better in the morning.”

“Not tired.”

“Sherlock, your eyes are rolling up into your head. I know it’s only _transport_ but you need to…” John prepares to go into his ‘ _Sherlock you’re being an idiot_ ’ spiel when Sherlock’s mutter interrupts him.

“Don’t make me, John. I don’t want to.”

John swallows his prepared speech whole as the realization hits him. _Sometimes_ , he thinks, _I am really, really good at deducing_.

“Sometimes people with migraine get nightmares – really bizarre ones, frightening. Is that what’s happening?”

Sherlock’s nod is so small that John doesn’t see it, but rather feels it, his hand on Sherlock’s cheek.

Gently, gently, John pulls Sherlock down the bed and tucks his face into Sherlock’s neck, careful not to jar his head. “I wish I could stop them for you. But I can’t.”

Sherlock’s eyes have slid shut now, but his left hand blunders until it finds John’s right one, intertwines with it. “Don’t leave me. Please.”

John’s heart breaks a little. “No, I won’t.”

Sherlock sighs, and tries to speak, twice. “Talk, John. Your voice helps. Helps me stay focused.”

 _Helps keep the fear at bay_ , John thinks. “What do you want me to talk about?”

“Anything.”

John is silent for a moment, then speaks quietly into the dark room. “Phalanges.”

Sherlock smiles.

“Metacarpals. Capitate. Hamate. Pisiform. Triquetal. Ulna…”

Sherlock is asleep before John reaches the coracoid.

oOo

John wakes to the sound of rain at the bedroom window, and Sherlock’s side of the bed empty and cool. He wraps himself in his housecoat and goes down to the kitchen.

Sherlock is sitting at the table, intent at his microscope. His long fingers adjust the focus of the scope, and John sees that they are steady.

“Morning, love. Feel better?”

“Obviously,” Sherlock replies without looking up. 

John smiles fondly and crosses behind Sherlock.  “So… doesn’t hurt anymore?”

“No.”

“Not here?” John drops a kiss, slow and soft, at the nape of Sherlock’s neck.

“….No.” Sherlock doesn’t look up, but his hands go still.

“Or here?” Another kiss, amongst the curls, on the top left side of his head.

“No.” His voice drops a third of an octave, part sigh.

“Or here?” John kisses the left side of Sherlock’s forehead, just as Sherlock slides back from the microscope and rests his head against John’s. John often thinks he can hear Sherlock’s brain sparking with electricity, or humming like a race car, but right now it is quiet except for the sound of their breath.

“I felt so far away from you, with the pain,” Sherlock whispers. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

They rest together for a moment, then Sherlock kisses John gently. “It’s raining.”

John blinks with confusion. “Is it?”

“Is your shoulder hurting? It often does, in the damp.”

John understands, and smiles into Sherlock’s face. “Yes, a bit.”

Sherlock takes John’s hand and pulls him out of the kitchen towards the bedroom. “I believe it would be prudent to conduct an exhaustive survey of what does and does not hurt, don’t you?"

 

_End_


End file.
